James Larkin

James Larkin (21 January 1876-30 January 1947) was an Irish socialist trade union leader and a founder of the Irish Labor Party. In 1927, from 1937 to 1938, and from 1943 to 1944 he served as a Teachta Dala from the Labor Party. Larkin was an important figure in the Irish labor movement, leading the 1907 Belfast dock strike and founding the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union in 1909.

Biography
James Larkin was born in Liverpool, England on 21 January 1876 to two Irish Catholic parents from County Armagh in Northern Ireland. Larkin worked as a sailor and docker before becoming a dock foreman in 1903, and he became a supporter of the socialist Independent Labor Party. In 1905, he was one of few foremen to take part in a strike on the Liverpool docks, and he became an organizer for the National Union of Dock Laborers after he was fired from his job. In 1907, he organized Belfast's dock workers for the NUDL, leading to a major dock strike that would see the workers and defectors from the Royal Irish Constabulary rise up against British rule before the British Army was called in to put down the strike.

Labor leader
In January 1909, Larkin founded the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union after the NUDL expelled him for getting involved in unofficial worker dispute. In 1912, Larkin was one of the founders of the Irish Labor Party in County Tipperary, and he led a major lockout in Dublin in 1913. In 1914, months after the lockout, Larkin moved to the United States, becoming a member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World in New York City, New York. Larkin was an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution, and he was expelled from the Socialist Party alongside several other Bolshevik sympathizers in 1919. In 1920, he was imprisoned for "criminal anarchy", and he was sentenced to five to ten years in Sing Sing prison. In 1923, Governor Al Smith pardoned and deported Larkin, who returned to Ireland. Larkin received a hero's welcome upon his April 1923 return, but he became rivasl with the new ITGWU leader William X. O'Brien, and he responded to this by forming the Workers' Union of Ireland.

Politician


In 1925, the Comintern sent Robert J. Stewart of the Communist Party of Great Britain to work with Larkin in forming a communist party in Ireland, but Larkin decided not to attend their meeting. Larkin returned to the Labor Party, and he served as a Teachta Dala in 1927, from 1937 to 1938, and from 1943 to 1944. He opposed William O'Brien's 1941 trade union bill, which sought to restructure the trade unions, and he became a sympathetic leader of the Labor Party after the bill's success in 1944. Ultimately, O'Brien left the Labor Party with his own faction, accusing the Labor Party of being corrupted by communism. Larkin died in Dublin, Ireland on 30 January 1947 at the age of 71.